Chills, page 1
CHILLS
By Rick Hautala
A Macabre Ink Production
Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Crossroad Press Digital Edition 2021
Copyright © 2013 Holly Newstein
Cover art © 2013 Cortney Skinner
Original publication by Cemetery Dance – 2013
LICENSE NOTES
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Meet the Author
Under his own name, Rick Hautala wrote close to thirty novels, including the million-copy best seller Night Stone, as well as Winter Wake, The Mountain King, and Little Brothers. He published three short story collections: Bedbugs, Occasional Demons, and Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala. He had over sixty short stories published in a variety of national and international anthologies and magazines.
Writing as A. J. Matthews, his novels include the bestsellers The White Room, Looking Glass, Follow, and Unbroken.
His recent and forthcoming books include Indian Summer, a new “Little Brothers” novella, as well as two novels, Chills and Waiting. He recently sold The Star Road, a science fiction novel co-written with Matthew Costello, to Brendan Deneen at Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s.
With Mark Steensland, he wrote several short films, including the multiple award-winning Peekers, based on the short story by Kealan Patrick Burke; The Ugly File, based on the short story by Ed Gorman; and Lovecraft’s Pillow, inspired by a suggestion from Stephen King.
Born and raised in Rockport, Massachusetts, Rick was a graduate of the University of Maine in Orono with a Master of Arts in English Literature. He lived in southern Maine and is survived by his wife, author Holly Newstein.
In 2012, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association.
For more information, check out his website www.rickhautala.com.
Book List
Novels and Novellas
Beyond the Shroud
Chills
Cold River
Cold Whisper
Dark Silence
Dead Voices
Follow
Four Octobers
Ghost Light
Impulse
Little Brothers
Looking Glass
Moondeath
Moonbog
Moonwalker
Night Stone
Reunion
Shades of Night
Star Road
The Cove
The Demon’s Wife
The Mountain King
The White Room
The Wildman
Twilight Time
Unbroken
Winter Wake
The Body of Evidence Series (co-written with Christopher Golden)
Brain Trust
Burning Bones
Last Breath
Skin Deep
Throat Culture
Story Collections
Bedbugs
Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala
Occasional Demons
Untcigahunk: The Complete Little Brothers
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And a special “thank you” to:
Rich Chizmar
You planted the seed; this is what grew.
Table of Contents
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~ 1 ~
Meg Clark was standing at the kitchen sink in her Aunt Bessie’s second-floor apartment, gazing out the window as she washed the dishes that had accumulated throughout the day. The small TV on the counter was on, and after the usual banter with the other anchors, the weatherman was giving a winter storm warning at the top of the hour.
Looking at her reflection in the window, she saw that her blond hair was hanging loosely over her forehead and brushed it back with a wet hand. Her hair and face were pale, colorless. The only hint of color was in her eyes. They looked like two pale blue marbles hovering in the air above the windowsill.
Looking past her own reflection, she could see Aunt Bessie, who was sitting at the kitchen table. Bessie was reading something. Her long, dark hair hung down like a curtain in front of her face.
Whenever Meg thought about how different they looked, Meg wondered how she and her aunt could even be related.
The weatherman, a thin, dark-haired young man named Keith Carson, said, “So with heavy accumulations and strong winds blowing the snow, we should expect to see significant accumulations before the morning commute.”
“Another classic nor’easter on the way,” the pretty blond news anchor said, laughing. Meg knew they had to keep things light, but she didn’t think blizzards were at all funny.
“You got that right,” Keith said, looking more serious than the news anchors. “This storm is going to pack quite a wallop throughout the night.”
“Did you hear that?” Meg asked.
She shifted her focus past her ghostly reflection to the bank of soot-gray storm clouds that lined the western horizon. It seemed to be moving perceptibly closer.
“What’s that?” Bessie asked without looking up from the travel brochure she was studying. At least twenty more brochures were fanned out across the table in front of her like playing cards.
“There’s a heck of a storm coming,” Meg said. She felt foolish, using the word “heck” instead of hell, but although she swore with her friends, and she knew her aunt swore from time to time, she felt uncomfortable talking like that in front of her.
“Don’t worry,” Bessie said, still not looking up. “You worry too much…always have.”
“No, I don’t,” Meg said even though she knew it wasn’t true. She did worry too much. But as far as she was concerned, she had plenty to worry about.
Finally, Aunt Bessie looked up, a faint smile twitching the corners of her mouth. The ceiling light in the kitchen reflected off the large round lens of her glasses, making it impossible to see her eyes. She took a sip from the glass of carrot juice she was drinking, leaned her head back, and sighed with satisfaction as she rubbed the back of her neck with one hand. After a moment, she turned back to her brochures.
Meg forced a smile, too, but she shivered when she shifted her focus once again to the sky outside the apartment building. Across the parking lot and the river beyond, the raft of dark clouds was moving in fast, already blotting out a huge swath of the afternoon sky. The sun was lost behind the clouds, looking like a weak light bulb muffled in cotton. In the gathering darkness, the streetlights in the parking lot and lining the street across the river started coming on. Trees stripped bare of their leaves for winter and the nearby houses and apartment buildings stood out like cutouts of black construction paper against the rapidly darkening sky. Lights winked on in several houses and buildings.
“It’s looking really bad,” Meg said as she switched the TV off now that they had started reporting on sports. She lazily washed a plate and tried to still her nerves. “We’re supposed to get at least—”
“We’ll be fine,” Bessie said, a bit snappishly. “Stop your worrying.”
“What if it snows really hard, though, and we’re stuck in the store all night?”
“Honey, we’re gonna be stuck there all night no matter what,” Aunt Bessie
“Umm,” Meg said without much enthusiasm.
“Okay, so your folks are gonna be there, too. But you and me—we’re gonna have a blast.”
Meg smiled, but she shivered again as she stared blankly at her reflection in the glass. She couldn’t help but think how much she looked like a ghost, hovering in the kitchen.
Bessie chuckled to herself, took off her glasses, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “We’ll have tons of fun. Trust me.”
When Meg didn’t say anything, Bessie put her glasses back on and, slouching in her chair, sat there staring at her. She wasn’t smiling, at least in reflection. She looked sad, and that touched Meg. She appreciated that her aunt was trying so hard to be kind to her after everything she had been through this past year.
“You all right?” Bessie finally asked, her voice low and filled with sympathy.
Biting her lower lip, Meg nodded. But as she blinked, tears filled her eyes, blurring her vision. A thick, sour taste filled her mouth.
Bessie let out a sigh and, pushing the chair back, got up and walked over to Meg. Placing a hand on her shoulder, she patted her affectionately.
“I know what’s bothering you,” Bessie said softly.
Meg said nothing. The burning in her eyes was worse.
“I realize it was just a year ago that your friends—”
“It was exactly a year ago…today,” Meg said, her voice surprisingly strong. She was close to crying, but she told herself it wouldn’t do any good. She had cried enough over the last year, and where had it gotten her? No matter how often or how hard she cried, nothing was going to bring back Sally or Richard or—especially Al.
Aunt Bessie’s hand remained on Meg’s shoulder for an uncomfortably long time, and then she patted her a few times and withdrew it. She didn’t say a word as she went back to the kitchen table and sat down.
Meg’s vision was still swimming as she looked up and focused on the window. For an instant—so quickly it was gone before it registered—her vision blurred and her reflection shattered so that it looked as if there were one…two…no, three other reflections standing behind her. She jumped and let out a tight squeal, but the instant she blinked and looked closer, they were gone.
Meg wanted to believe that she had been seeing double because there were tears in her eyes…or that her reflection had multiplied in the double panes of the storm window…or…or something. Shivering inside, she grabbed the sponge, plunged her hands into the soapy water, and started washing one of the crusted cereal bowls from this morning’s breakfast.
Once granola dries, it’s like cement, she thought, trying to fill her mind with mundane thoughts.
“You can leave those ’til later, you know?” Bessie said.
Meg sucked in her breath and nodded but kept right on scrubbing the bowl. She wanted to empty her mind so she wouldn’t think about the accident last January that had claimed the lives of her boyfriend and her two best friends in the world.
“Hey, Ashley!” Bessie yelled so suddenly Meg jumped and almost lost her grip on the slippery bowl. “We don’t have all day, yah know?”
There was no response, so Bessie got up and walked over to the kitchen doorway. Cupping her hands to her mouth like a trumpet, she shouted down the hallway.
“Com’on, Ash! We’ve gotta get a move on!”
“All right…all right. I’m coming.” Ashley’s voice was muffled. She was in her bedroom with the door closed. “Keep your shirt on.”
Meg smiled to herself, hearing her own younger self in her cousin’s petulant tone. It always struck her as peculiar how Ashley didn’t get along with her mother when, all her life, Meg had thought Aunt Bessie was the coolest person on the planet and wished she had been her mother instead of her real mother. Not that she didn’t love her mother, she told herself, but Meg was convinced that her mother didn’t “get” her the way Aunt Bessie, the “family hippie,” did. Meg was hoping that—before long—Ashley would discover just how lucky she was to have a person like Aunt Bessie for her mom.
From down the hallway, Meg heard Ashley’s bedroom door open and then slam shut much louder than was necessary. Footsteps approached the kitchen, and moments later, Ashley appeared, wearing low-slung jeans and a sleeveless black t-shirt with the faded logo of some obscure rock band. The hem of the t-shirt was cut off, so her thin, pale white midriff was exposed. Her hair—as long and dark as her mother’s—was stylishly cut longer on the left side than the right. Even Meg thought her thirteen-year-old cousin was inappropriately dressed…especially for a night of working.
“You’re going dressed like that?” Bessie said flatly.
Shrugging and looking all innocent, Ashley asked, “Like what?”
“It’s January, for cripe’s sake, and the store—especially the backroom where you’ll be working—is like a refrigerator this time of year.”
“So?”
“So. Wear something warm, or at least bring something so you don’t start complaining first thing. Once we start inventory, we are not coming home to get something warmer.”
“I don’t see why I have to go in the first place,” Ashley said, pouting now and, in spite of her clothes, looking much younger than someone who should be dressed the way she was.
“Because I said so,” Bessie said, her voice still firm and patient.
Ashley stood in the kitchen doorway for several seconds, trying her best to glare at her mother. Then she let out a frustrated gasp, spun around on her toes, and stomped down the hallway back to her bedroom.
Vowing not to get between mother and daughter, Meg focused on her dishwashing again, trying not to think about the figures she was sure she had seen in the window standing behind her.
No, thought you had seen… It was just your imagination, she told herself, but even as she did, a shiver ran up her back. To avoid looking at the window, she stared down at her hands as she scrubbed the rings out of a coffee cup that had been sitting on the counter too long.
~ 2 ~
A gust of cold wind slammed into Meg’s face hard enough to take her breath away when she stepped out the back door of the apartment building and onto the walkway that led to the parking lot. Aunt Bessie was a few steps behind her; Ashley was last in line, dragging her feet. She was still muttering to herself about how unfair it was that she had to work all night. Whenever her mother said something to her, no matter what it was, Ashley’s only response was a sarcastic, “What-evv-errr.”
The clouds had thickened, and snow was already spiraling out of the sky. Pulling her stocking cap down over her ears and snuggling into her parka, Meg walked quickly across the snow-skimmed parking lot to Aunt Bessie’s Volvo, which was parked beside the trash dumpster. The car’s paint had long since faded to a rusty brick red, and its sides were pitted with rust and dents. A bumper sticker that read: THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE, BUT FIRST IT WILL MAKE YOU ANGRY was plastered to the rear bumper along with a fading, peeling OBAMA/BIDEN sticker on the rear window.
The plow ridge at the far end of the parking lot was head-high with dirt-streaked snow and chunks of ice that were gunmetal gray in the fading light. Meg wondered where the snowplow would push all the new snow if they got as much as was predicted tonight and tomorrow.
When they got to the car, Bessie hurried to unlock the doors on the passenger’s side before she opened the driver’s door and dropped down onto the car seat. The springs in the seat squeaked like a mouse. She was huffing so hard the window frosted instantly.
“Thank God for heated car seats, huh?” she said as she slid the key into the ignition and cranked it. The car turned over but didn’t catch, so she tried again…and again. On the fourth try, after a mumbled prayer, the car started up. Once it was running, it chugged and sputtered as if not all the cylinders were firing.
Meg looked at her aunt quizzically. In the back seat, Ashley said nothing. She was slumped with her arms folded tightly across her chest, staring straight ahead as if this was the worst punishment imaginable.
I hope the heater works, Meg thought, feeling a blast of cold air blowing into her face.
